Talk:John Birmingham
I honestly didn't care much for Birmingham as a good historical writer. In the Axis of Time Trilogy, his depiction of John Curtin is based more on popular myth rather than actual fact. He has the guy worried beyond belief at a Japanese invasion back during mid 1942. The Australian government and military command knew perfectly well the Japanese weren't coming all the way south, thanks in part to Magic and common sense about Japan's capabilities. What Curtin was worried about in OTL were the troops coming home. Would they make it in time to prevent the fall of Port Moresby or would they all be sunk by Jap subs? THAT'S what he was really worried about. Birmingham's Curtin is pure myth and embarrassing to read. Mr Nelg :Well, he's only in there for a couple of scenes, and as I recall they're limited to the middle novel, which is certainly the weakest. Easy enough to ignore. Also, in his timeline Japan really DOES invade Australia, so it makes sense that the head of government would be concerned with that. (Whether it was realistic for him to have Japan show up in Australia might be another question, but one we must deal with seperately.) :His Einstein was out of sync with what I know of the real one. I asked him about this on his Crappy Board and he gave me a dismissive answer. Still, the fact that he could be reached by ordinary schlubs like me at all was pretty cool. I'm sure he hasn't done that in a long, long time. :Anyway, some of my favorite scenes from the first book depended on Einstein being the way Birmo wrote him. Had he written to reflect his personality accurately, the entire scenes would have had to be dropped, unless he wrote another character in Einstein's place, which would lose a certain glamor. :I also had, at the very least, question marks raised about his Eleanor Roosevelt, his Kennedy, his MacArthur, his Yamamoto, his Stalin, his Himmler, his Hirohito, his Kruschev, and his Beria. But you know, writers of historical fiction really do often have to take certain liberties with their historical characters if they want to give them at all a prominent role, or even a moderate one. I think I'd be hard pressed to name a single historical novel which makes any use of historical figures to speak of that doesn't embellish, revise, or misrepresent. If it makes the story stronger, I'll forgive it. Turtle Fan 05:49, May 4, 2010 (UTC) Relevance? Is this something that should be merged with Turtledove's Literary Influences, Co-Authors, and Creators of Shared Universes?JonathanMarkoff (talk) 05:12, January 15, 2018 (UTC) :Honestly, I don't if we even need it at all. Birmingham has tuckerized Harry, but I'm not aware of any joint projects, and I rather doubt the younger Birmo has had much influence on Harry's work. They've certainly never collaborated directly. But at a minimum, it doesn't need to be an article, no. TR (talk) 18:57, January 15, 2018 (UTC) :This might as well go. It dates to a time when there was some interest in building up some sort of cooperative effort among AH writers' Wikia that fizzled out pretty quickly. Absent that motivation, this article serves no purpose. :It's also badly out of date. After America did indeed come out in August '10. I think the third book was published eventually, but while I'd rather enjoyed WW despite its frighteningly grim tone, AA bored me and I gave up on it after a couple sittings. I lost track of him after that, though I do know he released a few AoT shorts somewhere along the way. Turtle Fan (talk) 21:09, January 15, 2018 (UTC) :I agree. It doesn't fit in with the direction this wiki has taken since there is no direct collaboration. A pity the joke about space lizards disappears but there you go. ML4E (talk) 22:21, January 15, 2018 (UTC)